Joao Barbosa, of Portugal, drives the Action Express Corvette DP to the finish line to win the IMSA Series Rolex 24 hour auto race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014.

DAYTONA BEACH | A Chevrolet Corvette DP drove through all the smoke and confusion in the first race in the new TUDOR United SportsCar Challenge, winning the prestigious Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

Lead driver Joao Barbosa pulled away from a similar Corvette from Wayne Taylor Racing in a restart after IMSA put the entire Daytona International Speedway road course under caution for a seemingly harmless spin with less than 21 minutes remaining.

By then, the winning Corvette prototype had accepted the laurels, including new Rolex watches, for winning the most prestigious sports car race in the U.S.

Although it turned out to be closer than he liked, Barbosa’s Action Racing won by 150 yards, taking his Action Express teammates Christian Fittipaldi and Sebastian Bourdais to Victory Lane in the process.

“As soon as the new series started, we knew we had a lot of work,” Barbosa said. “This didn’t happen overnight. We’ve put in 12,000 hours of work since our last race. This is a great prize for them.”

The winning team destroyed a car during a test session at Daytona in December and built a new car in a month.

Barbosa was able to drive away from what was a curious start for the sports car series that was formed following the merger of Grand-Am Road Racing and the American Le Mans Series.

The decision to throw the full-course caution came after Lee Keen drove off-course in the infield. But he quickly regrouped and drove away without leaving any debris on the track.

“I was very surprised by that caution,” Barbosa said. “But that’s racing, and you have to deal with it. We just drive. It’s out of our control. It worked out good for us today.”

The caution allowed Max Angelelli to draw up close for a restart with eight minutes to go, but he couldn’t keep up once the green flag waved.

“Trust me. I tried everything,” Angelelli said. “The most painful time of the race was the last four laps. In the final rush, just not enough.”

Angelelli co-drove with Ricky Taylor, Jordan Taylor and Wayne Taylor. Added with the third-place Corvette for Brian Frisselle, Burt Frisselle, John Martin and Fabien Giroix, an Action Express teammate, it gave Chevrolet a sweep of the top three overall spots.

Action Express started as an offshoot of Jacksonville’s Brumos Racing in 2010, and it has deep NASCAR roots with team manager Gary Nelson and director of team operations Elton Sawyer running the team.

The original decision to penalize the No. 555 Ferrari following a side-by-side final lap battle with the No. 45 Audi R8 LMS drew a lot of controversy.

The two were fighting to win the GT Daytona class when Markus Winkelhock ran off-course in the infield. Television replays clearly showed the two cars didn’t touch.

It took a lot of time to figure it out, but IMSA eventually came to the same conclusion.

“A full post-race review of the incident on the last lap of the 52nd Rolex 24 At Daytona was completed by IMSA supervisory officials,” IMSA vice president Scot Elkins said. “The decision has been made to reverse the decision by the race director, rescind the penalty against the No. 555 Level 5 Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia team, and reinstate drivers Scott Tucker, Bill Sweedler, Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal and Alessandro Pier Giuidi as the GT Daytona class winners. We regret the confusion following the race, and appreciate the patience by our fans, drivers, teams and the media so we could properly review and subsequently report this decision.”

Winkelhock didn’t agree with IMSA, saying even if it was the last lap he wasn’t given enough room in one of the turns.

“I left him plenty of space when we turned into the kink,” he said. “He left me no space. That’s not the way to win a race. That’s a fair decision.”

“The other guy tried to win the race by driving Markus off the road,” said Winkelhock’s teammate, Spencer Pumpelly.

Tim Pappas and Nelson Canache Jr. also worked in the winning GTD production car.

Other class winners were the No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR for Nick Tandy, Richard Lietz and Patrick Pilet in the GT Le Mans class and the No. 54 ORECA FLM09 for Colin Braun, Jon Bennett, James Gue and Mark Wilkins in the Prototype Challenge class.

The Porsche was sixth overall, and the ORECA was ninth.

The first race for USCC also will be remembered for a lot of crashes and spins. The biggest came at the end of the three-hour mark when the Prototype for Memo Gidley rear-ended the slow GT Le Mans car driven by Matteo Malucelli.

Gidley apparently was blinded by the setting sun and didn’t see Malucelli’s slow-rolling car. The impact launched Malucelli’s Ferrari airborne.

The accident created a 1-hour, 25-minute delay while emergency workers tried to extricate the drivers and clean up the mess.

Both drivers were sent to Halifax Health Medical Center. Gidley had surgery during the night on his left arm and leg. His race team reported he also has a “unstable” fracture in his back.